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Chibania/Dialogue
''Back to Chibania'' ''Previous'''' '' ''Next'' Dialogue Red: Alana, how does it feel to have a super-weapon almost nearly complete? Alana: Oh Neil, your ability to insert melodrama where there is none is a sight to behold. Red: X, it's important that you listen carefully before this next simulation. The next sim has actual sentient native life on it. If you terraform it, you are wiping the slate clean! That means you are massacring Sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans -- all three Homo species! That means a loss of life in Africa, Europe, and Asia, respectively. Whatever the Gaians say, Project Ishtar is a weapon! Alana: This is a simulation, not a time travel machine. Earth has been through so many changes -- changes that we know and have calculated. You are not actually killing sentient beings. No matter what you do in this simulation, you are not going back in time and killing anyone! The choice was made to use real data instead of made-up data that is based on hypotheses (misspelled as hypothoses) about other planets. We are not weaponizing Project Ishtar! Red: You say that now, but humans consistently turn tools into weapons. Alana: If this were to fall into the wrong hands, sure! But we have no intention of using our terraforming A.I. to harm people! We care about life! We want to see humans prosper! That doesn't mean it has to be at the expense of other lifeforms! Red: Alana, if you finish this project as you created it to work, it has the ability to compromise the future of anyone who disagrees with you, let alone compromising life that is not yet sentient! Alana: Are you accusing the Gaians of being capable of turning it on the Hephaestians because we don't agree? Red: It is not an unreasonable fear! Let's say the next three generations, the ones you will have a direct impact on, are pure of heart. What about the fourth generation, or the fifth? Will they be so pure with this power at their fingertips? Will they have the same priorities? Alana: No one can speak to the future. But neither can we use "what if" questions to haunt us. We can only do so much and trust those that come after us to do the right thing! That means we push forward with this new tool, while also teaching the importance of life -- all life! Red: Your trust is misplaced. Learning from history is to know that anything this powerful inevitably becomes a weapon. You can sit on your hands in your lovely Paradise and pretend everything is perfect. But someday, that Paradise will be ruined -- either at the hands of humans using your A.I. to their own ends or at the hands of the ones who have come to avenge those who could not speak for themselves. Alana: X, you must believe me! I would never allow this to be used so negligently! And we must trust that those who come after us would not either. We must remember that progress happens! Whether we develop this A.I. now or later, what is actually inevitable is its creation. It seems best to do it before humans are desperate. Best to do it now, when we have the option to be methodical. Show us where you stand, X. * You begin Chibania ''Back to Chibania'' ''Previous'''' '' ''Next'' Category:Dialogues Category:Historical Earths